2/12. The House
Judiciary Committee's Crime Subcommittee held a hearing on
HR
3482, the "Cyber Security Enhancement Act of
2001", sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith
(R-TX). Members of the subcommittee and witnesses offered
support for the bill. The Subcommittee has also scheduled a
meeting to mark up the bill on Thursday, February 14, at 1:30
PM.
Rep. Smith stated that "as we increase individuals'
physical safety at our airports, borders and even sporting
events, we should not forget to strengthen cyber security as
well." He continued that HR 3482 "increases
penalties to better reflect the seriousness of cyber crime;
enhances Federal, state and local law enforcement efforts
through better coordination, and assists state and local law
enforcement through better grant management, accountability
and dissemination of technical advice and information."
The bill contains provisions relating to sentencing guidelines
for computer hacking crimes, authority of Internet service
providers (ISPs) and others to voluntarily disclosure the
content of information to law enforcement authorities, and
other topics. The bill further amends several sections of the
criminal code that were just recently amended by the USA
PATRIOT Act, which is also known as the anti terrorism bill.
Section 101 of the bill would require the U.S. Sentencing Commission to
amend the federal sentencing guidelines with respect of
violations of 18
U.S.C. § 1030, which pertains to crimes involving
intentionally accessing a computer without authorization, or
in excess of authorized access. For example, the bill would
require the guidelines to include "whether or not the
defendant acted with malicious intent to cause harm in
committing the offense".
Section 102 of the bill would amend 18
U.S.C. § 2702(b), regarding disclosure of the contents of
communications. Currently, the statute provides that "A
person or entity may divulge the contents of a communication
... (6) to a law enforcement agency ... (C) if the provider
reasonably believes that an emergency involving immediate
danger of death or serious physical injury to any person
requires disclosure of the information without delay."
The bill would allow the disclosure "if the provider, in
good faith, believes ..."
Section 104 of the bill would authorize the appropriation of
$57,500,000 for the FBI's National
Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) for fiscal year
2003.
Section 105 of the bill would amend 18 U.S.
§ 2512, which pertains to the advertising of certain
illegal devices. The statute prohibits the advertising of
"any electronic, mechanical, or other device, knowing or
having reason to know that the design of such device renders
it primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious
interception of wire, oral, or electronic
communications." Section 105 of the bill would
specifically include advertising on the Internet.
Section 106 of the bill would amend 18
U.S.C. § 1030(c), which pertains to punishment of crimes
involving intentionally accessing a computer without
authorization or in excess of authorized access. The bill
would increase the maximum penalty to life imprisonment for
crimes where the "offender knowingly causes or attempts
to cause death or serious bodily injury".
Rep. Bobby Scott
(D-VA), the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee, offered
qualified support for the bill. He stated that unlike some
previous bills, this bill "contains no such heavy handed
law enforcement approaches". However, expressed concern
over the "further loosening" of the voluntary
disclosure standard from "reasonably believes" to
"good faith".
John Malcolm, who is the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in
charge of the Computer
Crimes and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS),
testified in support of the bill. He stated in his prepared
testimony the bill "strengthens the deterrent effect
of current laws by increasing penalties and closing loopholes.
The Department strongly supports these amendments." The
CCIPS is a section of the Criminal Division of the Department
of Justice (DOJ).
He also stated that there are additional changes to current
law that the DOJ would like to see included in the bill. He
advocated changing the language in Section 106 to also include
anyone who with "reckless disregard" causes or
attempts to cause death or serious bodily injury. He gave a
hypothetical: "suppose a hacker shuts down a town's phone
service. While phone technicians race to restore service, no
emergency 9-1-1 calls can go through. It is easy to envision
in such a situation that somebody might die or suffer serious
injury as a result of this conduct. Although the hacker might
not have known that his conduct would cause death or serious
bodily injury, such reckless conduct would seem to merit
punishment greater than the ten years permitted by the current
statute." Malcolm also advocated further changes to the
sentencing guidelines.
Clint Smith, of WorldCom
and the U.S. Internet Service
Providers Association, also testified in support of the
bill. He said in his prepared
testimony that the "USISPA collectively supports HR
3482 for three reasons: It increases funding for law
enforcement, It strengthens penalties for cybercrime, and It
reduces potential impediments to ISP cooperation with law
enforcement.
However, he suggested changing Section 105. He stated that
this section of the bill "leaves it unclear whether the
modifications to 18 USC § 2512(c) would make ISPs, portals,
third party transactions sites, online directory companies or
other Internet advertisers liable when illegal monitoring and
wiretapping devices are advertised on their networks or
through their services. While we recognize that this may not
be the intent of the legislation, USISPA urges this committee
to clarify that Section 105 neither requires our members, in
any way, to monitor traffic or to screen or filter content nor
restricts our members from doing so."
Alan Davidson, of the Center for
Democracy and Technology (CDT), was the only witness to
offer any criticism of the bill. He stated in his prepared
testimony that voluntary disclosure provision of Section
102 of the bill is "overly broad" and "would
substantially expand the ability to reveal private
communications without any judicial authority or
oversight."
Rep. Bob Goodlatte
(R-VA) stated at this hearing that he introduced a separate
bill on February 12 that would establish a uniform standard
for criminal liability against ISPs by providing that an ISP
cannot be held liable under federal criminal law for the
actions of third party users. He suggested that it be added to
HR 3482, which is scheduled for subcommittee mark up on
February 14. Rep. Smith, the subcommittee Chairman, and
sponsor of HR 3482, did not respond or comment.
Susan Koeppen of Microsoft also testified in support of the
bill. See, prepared
testimony. Rep.
Howard Coble (R-NC) and Rep. Steve Chabot
(R-IN) also participated in the hearing. Rep. Chabot
questioned witnesses about the upgrading of private networks
to reduce cyber crime.

Senate Committee Holds
Hearing on IP Theft Abroad

2/12. The Senate
Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the theft of
American intellectual property. All of the Senators,
government officials, and industry representatives who spoke
agreed that piracy of intellectual property is a serious
problem, and that more needs to be done to deter theft abroad.
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE),
the Chairman of the Committee, presided. He stated that
"when an American owns property, the government has a
responsibility to protect that property from theft. When that
property is an idea, it deserves our protection no less than
if it were land, or a personal object." He added that
"if we want to protect American innovation, and by
extension American jobs, we need to maintain a vigilant stand
against intellectual property theft." He also released
his own 46 page report titled "Theft of American
Intellectual Property: Fighting Crime Abroad and at
Home".
Sen. George Allen
(R-VA) and Sen. Barbara
Boxer (D-CA) both offered strong words of criticism for
piracy.
The Committee heard testimony from three government witnesses,
Alan Larson, Under Secretary of State, Peter Allgeier, Deputy
U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), and John Gordon, U.S.
Attorney for the Central District of California.
Larson addressed efforts by the State Department to persuade
other nations to ratify WIPO treaties, and to pass and enforce
anti piracy legislation. He also stated that the U.S. is
insisting upon intellectual property protection provisions,
with dispute resolution procedures, when it negotiates new
bilateral and regional trade agreements. See, prepared
testimony.
Allgeier reviewed the Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPS) agreement, the USTR's use of the Special 301
process, and trade agreements. Gordon testified about efforts
by U.S. Attorneys to prosecute intellectual property crimes,
and the involvement of foreign gangs in piracy.
The Committee also heard testimony from three industry
representatives: Jack Valenti (P/CEO of the Motion Picture Association of
America), Hilary Rosen (P/CEO of the Recording Industry Association of
America), and Jeff Raikes (Microsoft). See, Rosen
testimony [PDF].

FCC Names Info Warrior to
Lead Spectrum Task Force

2/12. The Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) picked Paul Kolodzy to be
Senior Spectrum Policy Advisor in the FCC's Office of Engineering and
Technology (OET). Kolodzy will also chair a newly created
FCC task force addressing issues related to spectrum policy.
Kolodzy comes to the FCC from the Advanced Technology Office
(ATO) at the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the Department of Defense (DOD).
Before going to work at DARPA, he worked for defense
contractor Sanders, which was a Lockheed Martin
company, but is now a part of BAE Systems.
Before joining the FCC, Kolodzy was one of 16 program managers
at DARPA's ATO. He headed the ATO's neXt
Generation Communications (XG) program, which seeks to
develop both the system concepts and the enabling technology
to dynamically assign spectrum in the battlefield environment.
He also managed the ATO's Small Unit Situational Awareness
System program, which is developing mobile, ad hoc networking
to provide position and navigation in GPS denied areas.
The FCC has spectrum management responsibilities with respect
to spectrum bands assigned for commercial use. The NTIA has responsibility
for management of spectrum assigned to the DOD.
Kolodzy has experience with developing advanced mobile
wireless communications systems. However, unlike current
commercial 2G networks or forthcoming 3G systems, these
military systems do not involve cellular networks. Saddam
Hussein, and other evil telecom regulators, are likely to
grant the U.S. military licenses, building permits, and access
to rights of way, for constructing a network of base stations
and relay towers within their jurisdictions. Hence, the
military is developing a radio system for soldiers that uses
low power, high bandwidth, self configuring, mobile, peer to
peer networks. The system would also incorporate spectrum
hopping, in part, to avoid interception, and location
identification, for situational awareness.
Kolodzy also has experience with interference, that is,
maximizing interference. The Advanced Technology Office's WolfPack
program is intended to deprive battlefield competitors of the
use of radio communications from 20 MHz through 2.5 GHz
through the use of distributed, autonomous, ground level, low
power battlefield jammers. The goal of this program is to
completely disrupt enemy communications, without affecting
U.S. military communications in the same battlespace and
spectrum bands.
Kolodzy also worked at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory for 11 years
as senior systems analyst. He has a PhD in Chemical
Engineering from Case Western Reserve University. See also,
FCC release,
DOD biography
and picture, Kolodzy speech
[PDF] on WolfPack, and DARPA solicitation
of proposals [MS Word] regarding WolfPack.

NTIA Director Addresses
Broadband and Rights of Way

2/12. NTIA Chief
Nancy Victory gave a speech
titled "Together on the Right Track: Managing Access to
Public Roads and Rights of Way" to the National Association of
Regulatory Utility Commissioner's (NARUC) Committee on
Telecommunications in Washington DC. She stated that "we
are concerned that constraints on accessing public rights of
way might be inhibiting broadband network construction."
She reviewed the content of comments
that the NTIA received recently in its broadband proceeding.
She stated that "While most of the concerns were voiced
about municipality and county activities in this area, federal
agencies that own public lands were also identified as posing
potential roadblocks to rights of way access. Due to the
nature of networks, only a few ``difficult´´ jurisdictions
can have a disproportionately adverse effect on the roll out
of uninterrupted statewide or regional advanced services
networks, which ultimately can impair national broadband
coverage. These commenters suggest four impediments that
errant rights of way administration can impose on broadband
deployment: delay, unreasonable fees, a third tier of
regulation, and discriminatory treatment."
However, she also pointed out that "city and municipal
interests argue that as trustees of the public's roads and
rights of way, their fiduciary duty demands that they recover
the fair value of private use of the public's property.
Therefore, they contend that local governments should have the
flexibility to use market pricing, including revenue based
mechanisms, for efficient allocation of rights to use scarce
public resources. These commenters maintain that prohibiting
localities from charging market rates for rights of way access
unfairly subsidizes telecom carriers at the expense of the
community." She was speaking to representatives of these
local government entities.

Sen. Baucus Addresses Trade
Promotion Authority

2/12. Sen. Max Baucus
(D-MT) gave a speech
titled "A New Trade Policy for New Democrats" to the
Democratic Leadership Council.
He advocated passage the Senate Finance
Committee's version of the trade promotion authority (TPA)
bill, which was approved by a vote of 18 to 3 on December 12,
2001. The House passed its version of the bill, HR 3005,
on December 6, 2001. TPA, which is also know as fast track,
would give the President authority to negotiate trade
agreements which the Congress can then approve or reject, but
not amend. Sen. Baucus is Chairman of the Senate Finance
Committee.
Sen. Baucus stated that "We may pass fast track this
year, but fast track alone doesn't bring the benefits of
expanded trade. Trade agreements do. And if this
Administration wants to pass agreements, it needs to build a
record of trust -- handling trade in a way that advances the
interests of all Americans. They can start with TAA."
Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA, said Baucus, "is a
program for workers who are adversely affected by trade."
He also stated that "fast track is necessary to complete
the negotiations in the World
Trade Organization. We have started those negotiations
without it -- but fast track will be critical when an
agreement is reached several years from now."
Baucus stated that "The Senate bill also recognizes the
importance of new industries -- where U.S. ingenuity leads the
world biotechnology, environmental technology, e-commerce, and
services, just to name a few. And we include a negotiating
objective to level the playing field in the area of
international tax. This is an issue where the Administration
should be working hard to find a negotiated solution, and this
legislation reaffirms that message."
He also addressed the labor and environment provisions in the
bill.

More News

2/11. Sen. Paul
Wellstone (D-MN) introduced S 1928, a bill that wuld
amend 47
U.S.C. § 222 to require affirmative written consent by a
customer to the release of customer proprietary network
information. The bill was referred to the Senate Commerce
Committee.
2/12. The U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office (USPTO) published a notice
in the Federal Register stating that it is "considering
whether the paper copies of selected subclasses of U.S.
patents to be removed from the examiners' search rooms should
be disposed of as wastepaper or donated to a non-profit
organization." Any interested non-profit organization
should contact the USPTO on or before March 14, 2002. See,
Federal Register, February 12, 2002, Vol. 67, No. 29, at Pages
6505 - 6506.
2/12. FCC Chairman Michael Powell
wrote a letter
[PDF] to David Clark, Chairman of the Computer
Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB), regarding the
CSTB report titled "Broadband: Bringing Home the
Bits".

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The House will not be in session.
Day three of a three day conference titled Biometric
Consortium Conference. See, conference
web site. Location: Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Arlington,
Virginia.
8:00 AM - 2:00 PM. The National
Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advisory Committee for
Cyberinfrastructure will hold an open meeting. See, notice
in Federal Register, February 4, 2002, Vol. 67, No. 23, at
Pages 5136 - 5137. Location: Room 1150, NSF, 4201 Wilson
Blvd., Arlington, VA.
9:30 AM. The U.S.
Court of Appeals (DCCir) will hear oral argument in New
World Radio v. FCC, No. 1110. Judges Henderson, Randolph
and Rogers will preside.
12:00 NOON. Deadline to submit comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
(USTR) regarding foreign countries that deny adequate and
effective protection of intellectual property rights or deny
fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on
intellectual property protection. The USTR requests comments
pursuant to its duties under § 182 of the Trade Act of
1974, 19
U.S.C. § 2242, which is better known as the "Special
301" provisions. See, notice
in the Federal Register, December 26, 2001, Vol. 66, No. 247,
at Pages 66492 - 66493.
Extended deadline to file reply comments with the FCC in its
proceeding regarding cross ownership of broadcast stations
and newspapers. This is MM Docket No. 01-235. See, notice
in Federal Register, January 8, 2002, Vol. 67, No. 5, at Pages
828 - 829.

Monday, Feb 18

Presidents' Day. The FCC will be closed. The House will be
in recess on February 18 through 22.

Tuesday, Feb 19

4:00 PM. Deadline to submit grant applications to the
Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration
for funds for skills training programs. These grants are
financed by user fees paid by employers in the H-1B visa
program. See, notice
in Federal Register, January 10, 2002, Vol. 67, No. 7, at Page
1368. This notice changes a deadline of February 12 contained
in a previous
notice in the Federal Register, December 14, 2001, Vol.
66, No. 241, at Page 64859 - 64872.
Extended deadline to submit reply comments to the FCC in
response to its Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
regarding its cable horizontal and vertical ownership
limits. See, original
notice [PDF] in Federal Register of October 11, 2001, and
extension Order
[PDF] of January 29, 2002. The NCTA requested the extension.
Deadline to submit comments to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
regarding its proposed settlement with Eli Lilly (which
accidentally disclosed the e-mail addresses of 669 subscribers
to a Prozac e-mail list). The proposed settlement requires Eli
Lilly to establish a security program. See, notice
in the Federal Register, February 1, 2002, Vol. 67, No. 22, at
Pages 4963 - 4964.
Deadline to submit comments to the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) in the matter of Ambient's application for a
determination that it is an exempt telecommunications company.
It is an electric power company that also provides broadband
Internet access and related information services over power
lines to electrical outlets in residences. See, FCC
release [PDF].

FTC Sues Senders of
Deceptive Spam

2/12. The Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) announced that it filed seven complaints
in various U.S. District Courts alleging deceptive acts or
practices in violation of Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade
Commission Act, 15 U.S.C.
§ 45(a), in connection with the sending of unsolicited
commercial e-mail, or spam. The FTC also simultaneously
settled the actions. See, FTC
release, with hyperlinks to copies of the complaints and
stipulated final judgments.